mutual differences, and unite for the common safety. The Count, now reinstated in his former command, endeavoured to retrieve the loss of Africa; but it was then too late. He tried to draw off the barbarians, first by money, afterwards by force of arms, but without success. Being defeated in battle, he fled to Hippo, which was the strongest fortress in the country. This city, as I before observed, was the episcopal residence of our Saint; and, with the exception of Carthage and Cirtha, was almost the only one of the numerous African Sees, which had not yet been laid in ruins by the, Vandals.

In the midst of the general desolation, Augustine was the comfort, not only of his own flock, but of the whole church of Africa. Το form an idea, my brethren, of all he did, by his correspondence, his preaching, and his charities, to alleviate the sufferings of his country, you must read his life in Alban Butler; from whose excellent biographical compilation I have extracted the preceding account. But the time was now approaching, when this great saint and champion of the Church was to pass from these scenes of misery, to that better and blessed life, where misery is unknown.-In the month of May, 430, the fourth year of their invasion, the Vandals besieged Hippo by land and sea. In the third month of the siege, the holy bishop was seized with a fever; and after some weeks of illness, which time he spent in the most fervent sentiments of contrition, resignation, and love of his Redeemer, he calmly expired on the twenty-eighth day of August, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and fortieth of his ministry.

How awful and unsearchable are the ways of Divine Providence! A Bishop, whose zeal had extended on all sides the dominion of Christ; a Saint, whose virtues seemed calculated to confirm all the nations in the faith; a writer, whose works not only eradicated, in his own country, the numerous sects of the day, but have been, ever since, the grand depot of spiritual armoury for all defenders of the truth, in every corner of the globe;-to say all in a word, an Augustine-dies, leaving his native land a prey to heretic barbarians! And Africa, once so Catholic; once so learned; the mother of the Tertullians, the Cyprians, the Optatus's, the Augustine's; Africa, once the pride of the Church of God, has never since raised her head from the sink of barbarism and infidelity! For though, about a hundred years after, the bra very of a Belisarius, by extinguishing the Vandal kingdom, restored, for a time, these beautiful provinces to the Roman Empire; yet, the se venth century had scarcely dawned, when Mahometanism overspread the land; and the country which had been blessed with the prayers, the preaching, and the writings of an Augustine, hs, now, for one thousand years, been polluted with the impure and barbarous superstition of the impostor of Mecca!

Oh Augustine! may Ireland never be doomed to the fate of thy unhappy country, or of those nations who have lost the Catholic Faith! May our fathers and mothers imitate thy pious and tender parent Monica! May our children obey, betimes, the religious admonitions of those, whom God and Nature have given them for the guardians of their innocence! And if any of

our youth have gone astray like thee, may they, like thee, return to their merciful Redeemer ! Look, oh Augustine! with an eye of peculiar affection on our clergy; on our Bishops and Priests. They are called to the same holy ministry with thee; may they, in their sacred functions, for ever imitate thee! And if I, sinner as I am, be permitted to raise my voice in my own individual behalf, I beseech thee, oh! thou Doctor of the Catholic Church; thou converter of sinners; thou enlightener of sectaries; thou great and glorious defender of the faith of Jesus; I beseech thee to pray to that same Jesus, that in the arduous undertaking I have commenced; namely, this periodical publication of my sermons-I may, through his grace (without which I can do nothing, but with which I can do all) attain the object I have in view, and which I here comprize in two words-the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and the conversion of infidels and sinners. May Jesus give me strength to accomplish this object; and may every pious soul who hears me contri bute to that accomplishment! That so, imitating thy virtues and thy zeal, oh! thou faithful imitator of the apostles! we may, with dys and with thee, enjoy the blissful sight of our Saviour and our God for ever and ever

A blessing, &c.

I am glad to see the number of cheap Catholic publications, which are now coming out. - Mr. Nolan, 3, Suffolk-street, has published 1. Some few of the many Reasons, which must for ever attach a Roman Catholic to his Religion. Price 1d.-2. A Roman Catholic's

Reasons, why he cannot conform to the Protestant Religion. Price 2d.-3. In the press, a new edition of Fifty Reasons, &c. which induced ANTHONY ULRICK, Duke of Brunswick, to abjure Lutheranism. Price 8d.-4. On hands, a few of GALLITZIN'S Defence of the Catholic Faith. Price 18. 3d. Mr. Battersby, 33, Winetavern-street, is publishing The Faith and Religion of Rome and St. Patrick, or, The Perpetuity and Infallible Authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In Six Letters, Price 6d. each. Mr. Coyne, 74, Cook-street, has published The Shield of the Catholic Faith, or, TERTULLIAN'S Prescriptions against all Heretics. In Five Numbers, Price 5d. each. Let Catholic Publishers work in this way; let a Catholic Nation encourage them; let the Rich purchase, and distribute among the Poor, hundreds of these Catholic Tracts; let this be done, and the Trash (not Tracts) of all the motley Sectarian Societies; the falsehood, ribaldry, and obscenity of the Orange Press, will soon cease to pollute the land and our poor fellow-countrymen will reive that solid religious instruction, which, if it cannot remove, will at least, alleviate their manifold sufferings.

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The Seventeenth Sermon will be the Panegyric of ST. DOMINIC, FOUNDER OF THE FRIAR PREACHERS.-Text-"Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let his praise be in the Church of the Saints." Psalm cxlix. v. 1.

SERMON XVII.

OF

THE REV. RICHARD HAYES.

ST. DOMINIC, FOUNDER OF THE FRIAR
PREACHERS.

Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let his praise be in the Church of the Saints. Psalm cxlix. v. 1.

MANY are the reasons, my brethren, which keep me in the Catholic Church. Many are the motives, which make my heart grateful to my Redeemer, for having mercifully caused me to be born and educated within her sacred pale. The more I reflect; the more I read; the more I examine her faith and practice, and compare them with the theories and usages of every other system of religion-the stronger becomes my conviction, that she is the only Church of God; that her doctrine is alone conformable to the eternal truth of Jesus; alone worthy of the greatness and goodness of the Deity; alone consistent with the common sense, congenial to the nature, commensurate with the wants, and conducive to the happiness of Man. When I consider the public and undeniable evidence of her history; which is, in fact, the religious history of the whole human race. When I reflect on the authen